By an accident of birth Thomas Jefferson (1742-1826) entered Virginia planter society and politics in 1769 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. By an application of his fortuitous talents, he became a political philosopher when America most needed one. Jefferson’s A Summary View of the Rights of British America (July 1774, […]
No one disputes that the fighting that erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 ignited a war between Great Britain and her thirteen American colonies. As we all know, the bloodshed of that day in Massachusetts initiated an eight year war that culminated with American independence. It is important to remember, however, that […]
A visitor to Williamsburg prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War would have discovered a city of just 1,900 inhabitants, roughly 900 of whom were white and free and the remaining 1,000 black and mostly enslaved.1 These were the year-round inhabitants who lived in the several hundred wooden and brick dwellings that sat upon […]
